


Places to call home

by MittenCrab



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bottom Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Fluff, Happy Sex, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Reunion Sex, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 05:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11284635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenCrab/pseuds/MittenCrab
Summary: “Let me take care of you,” he says. Because he wants to be able to in a way that means something, in a way that isn’t pulling a trigger or watching his six or guiding Gabriel out of a seizure. Because this life has taught him how to ‘take care’ of Gabriel when he needs to, but never when he wants to.[Gabriel returns to LA after a six-month deployment. Jack welcomes him home. (PWP)]





	Places to call home

**Author's Note:**

> For Laura, who I always miss, and who beta'd for me. For making my life brighter.

They catalogue each other’s new scars in the shower. Under the steady spray of hot water, everything narrows to roaming hands and hungry desperation even though it’s well past midnight. It’s a ritual that they observe every time they’re reunited - part of the unspoken sacrament of homecoming. Jack traces each new mark on Gabriel’s skin like a man starved, laying claim to everywhere he’s missed, everywhere he’s been forced to conjure in his mind whilst Gabriel has been away. He tries to remember how to be together in the same space.

 

It’s been six months this time. Longer than usual. He’s told himself again and again that he’s used to this.

 

Except, he isn’t.

 

Jack is sick of his own sentimentality, but not as sick as he is of being deployed separately. The truth is, even though they’ve settled into this place, pinned Gabriel’s old horror movie prints up on the walls, stocked the cupboards with Jack’s favourite coffee, he’s coming to realise that without Gabriel in it, it isn’t quite _home_.

 

“Window shattered,” Gabriel supplies, almost casual, as Jack’s fingers map out a new constellation of fine white lines that spread across the back of his neck. Just below the chain of the dog-tags he never takes off. In the heat of the shower, the scars look raised and stark against the warm brown of his skin. Jack thinks about having them under his tongue. “Bastion blew itself to shit behind me and glass just went _everywhere_. Didn’t even realise until it started itching. 23 fucking pieces they had to pull out of me.” He scrubs his thumb across a gnarled, star-shaped mark, still red and thick on Jack’s bicep. “What’s this one?”

 

“Civilian.”

 

Gabriel huffs, a rough, tired sound that’s half amusement and half despair.

 

“Jesus, Fubar. Everyone wants to shoot your sorry ass.”

 

“Fuck off,” Jack laughs as he shoves at him. Makes a show of pushing him away only so he can pull him back again. “The guy was high as hell. Camped out in one of those old factories, you know, the Cosero ones? Think he’d been there a while. Tried to get him to come out and the motherfucker just shot me at point blank. Pretty sure he thought I was an omnic until I started bleeding all over him.”

 

Gabriel snorts out a laugh. It’s a comfortable, easy kind of sound that makes the hot itch under Jack’s skin settle a little.

 

“You should be more careful,” he says. Traces the scar gently. “All that stuff they pumped us full of won’t do shit if someone gets a lucky shot on you.”

 

“I’m not the one with like twenty-five new scars Cap.” That isn’t the point. He knows it isn’t.

 

With slow, deliberate movements, Gabriel leans down and places a kiss against the still-healing skin. It makes Jack shiver involuntarily. Even though it’s late and he knows that he’s supposed to be tired, the sensory overload of the airport has left him with static in his veins. He feels wired and aggressive like the day before an op, muscles full of useless energy that has nowhere to go.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gabriel lets out a long, broken sound that’s not quite a moan, not quite a sigh, but definitely unnecessarily sexual. Abruptly, Jack snaps out of his own daze. Watches as Gabriel closes his eyes and stands in the shower spray, water rolling off his shoulders and down his back. Almost painfully slowly, Gabriel scrubs a hand down his own face, over his beard. It’s growing out. Needs a trim. “I forgot how fucking good a hot shower felt.”

 

Jack hums. His throat is suddenly dry. He lets himself get lost in drawing meaningless patterns across the other man’s skin with his fingertips. Gabriel’s body feels leaner than he remembers. Tighter somehow, like smoke poured into a glass too small to contain it. The protective part of him raises its hackles at the realisation.

 

Six months in ‘redacted’ have left Gabriel without any major new scars, and in this profession, that should be enough. Jack still dreams sometimes of the blind, cold fear of Detroit; the chemical tang of death and antiseptic; the long months of wondering whether Gabriel would ever walk again. Knows, deep down, that anything else should feel like a blessing.

 

But Gabriel is _tired_ . It’s not the kind of jetlagged, red-eyed tiredness of a man whose plane just landed at half past midnight local time, either. Gabriel’s exhaustion looks like thunder about to break. His hair has grown into short curls out of its usual closely cropped fuzz, and there’s a sort of dead-weight fatigue written across the slant of his shoulders, in how his body feels coiled tight under Jack’s hands. It’s in the timbre of his voice, too - in the way he speaks a little too slowly and a little too deep. It makes something in Jack flare and yowl with the frantic urge to _keep him safe._

 

More than anything, Jack wants to press out all of Gabriel’s creases. Loosen all the knots he winds himself into to try to prove his worth. Reluctantly, he takes his palms away from where he’s been gratuitously edging them down Gabriel’s chest. He fumbles for the shampoo and starts working it into a lather between his hands.

 

“Your hair got so long,” he says softly as he starts massaging the soap into Gabriel’s scalp. There’s a grunting noise of disapproval, but Gabriel leans into his touch. Jack’s secretly fond of the soft way Gabriel’s hair falls over his forehead, of the feel of tangling his fingers into it. He knows it won’t stay long. Never does. He knows Gabriel needs to feel stripped clean before he can finally settle, that having his hair clipped short over the bathroom sink is part of shedding a deployment from his skin. Gabriel is full of little rituals like that. Rules that have to be followed, things that have to be repeated.

 

As he rinses the shampoo out, his hands move with the soapy water, winding a trail from Gabriel’s scalp down to his neck, his shoulders. There’s tension there, sinew-deep, so tight that it must be painful. Jack starts to massage it out with his thumbs without even thinking, hears the guttural noise of appreciation that whines out of Gabriel’s throat. Digs his fingertips into tense muscle until he feels it give way. There’s a long history of his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders - in relieving the way neck gets stiff after travelling, easing out the soreness after the seizures that still happen when he gets stressed, chasing the last shivers of pleasure down his spine after he’s cum.

 

That last image sends a rush of heat between his thighs. Jack tries to ignore it.

 

Instead, he brings his hand up to cup Gabriel’s face. Slowly, he runs his thumb over the scar that slashes through the bridge of his nose. Follows its path across his cheekbone again and again. Gabriel exhales loudly through his nose and leans heavily into the touch.

 

“You tired?” Jack asks, as if it isn't already obvious. Gabriel nods lethargically, eyes still closed. There’s a part of Jack desperate to just get him to bed. To tuck him against his chest and let him sleep. But the longer Gabriel stands under the shower, the more the tension starts to seep away from under his eyes, from the rigid line of his back.

 

They stand for a while. Just breathing. Jack keeps on stroking the scars of Gabriel’s face with his thumb. Tries to ground himself in it, in the repetition. He wants to shake the taste of too much coffee from his mouth. He wonders, not for the first time since they’ve got into the shower, if he locked the apartment door properly.

 

Gabriel opens his eyes. He blinks heavily as though he’s woken up from a dream, stares directly at Jack with something like concern. For a moment, Jack almost forgets how to breathe.

 

“I missed you,” Gabriel says, low and smooth, and it makes heat shudder from the base of Jack’s spine. All at once something deep in his chest feels like summer and open fire and too many shots of whiskey. His eyes flicker down to the curve of Gabriel’s lips.

 

“Yeah?” he asks breathlessly. As if it’s a question. As if it’s a challenge ( _show me how much_ ).

 

Something snaps.

 

And just like that, six months of distance crumble between them, Gabriel’s mouth is on his, Gabriel’s hands are grabbing clumsily at his shoulders, everything is _Gabriel_. The kiss is all lazy hunger and thick, hot ache inside his ribcage. Jack moans into it, plaintive and touch-starved, and grabs on for dear life. Gabriel tastes like cigarette smoke on his tongue. Jack wants it to fill up his lungs until he can’t breathe.

 

There are warm hands sliding down his sides, pulling him close until he’s wrapped up in the cage of Gabriel’s arms. Having so much contact with somebody else’s skin makes Jack’s whole body jerk against his control. Without meaning to, he gasps, bites down on Gabriel’s lip. Tastes blood.

 

It’s been years since the last injection, but the side effects still cling to him. SEP has left Jack over-sensitive and overwhelmed. Each and every nerve is a lit flare waiting to go off, and it’s been too long since he’s been touched. His senses constantly waver on the line of _too much_ , light and sound and touch becoming jagged and needle-sharp under his skin, like liquid neon clawing through his veins.

 

(Some days, something flashes in the wrong part of his brain, like a spark from a fuse, and everything feels so _intense_ all at once that he can’t even bear to be touched, lies alone on his mattress in the dark like it’s a tomb and pulls breath after heaving breath into his lungs and prays to a god he’s stopped believing in for it to pass.)

 

It’s been so long that Gabriel feels like a blinding snap of electricity straight to the base of his skull. He’s too busy feeling alive to care.

 

“I missed you,” Gabriel is repeating frantically between kisses, as though it’s a mantra, “Fuck, Jack, I _missed_ you.”

 

Jack just nods helplessly, _yes, yes, yes_ . He’s laughing and he doesn’t know why. Everything is bright and soft as his hands fumble at Gabriel’s ribs, his waist, the curve of his ass. The weight of the shower steam is making him lightheaded. His mind is white-noise and he needs this, needs to claim every inch of skin, to map the gorgeous topography of Gabriel’s body with his fingertips and get lost in it. It’s sloppy and needy and it tastes like _home_.

 

Part of him knows that he’s burning too quickly, like wildfire spreading through a parched field in the Indiana summer. He’s already half-hard. Half-dizzy. The slick friction of Gabriel’s wet thigh against his cock is enough to send sparks pooling in his stomach, and it’s too much, too soon, but he doesn’t want it to stop. Never wants it to stop.

 

He pulls back, just a little, just enough to see Gabriel’s face. His eyes are dark and wide and Jack’s blood feels too hot. His breath comes in gasps.

 

“How tired are you exactly?” he asks. Lets his hands slide lower than they should. Teasing. Gabriel inhales so fast that Jack almost feels it in his own chest. It makes him shudder. His heart is racing and the air is heavy in his lungs.

 

Gabriel yawns. Shrugs. “Depends.” As if he doesn’t know exactly what Jack’s doing. As if it hasn’t been _six goddamn months_. He leans back lazily, stretches like he’s putting himself on display, all thick muscle and damp skin that Jack wants to grab and bite and kiss, and god does that thought send heat straight to his cock. He swallows hard without meaning to, and Gabriel must catch it because suddenly his hands are trailing down Jack’s chest instead. “You have something particular in mind?”

 

“Was kind of hoping you’d let me fuck you, actually.” Jack says. Gabriel’s right thumb is stroking thick, slow circles around his nipple and it’s all too distracting and there is blood rushing in his ears and he’s grabbing frantically at Gabriel’s ass just to try to anchor himself. “You know. Welcome you home.”

 

“Yeah?” Gabriel says. Strands straighter. His voice is deeper than usual, full of old smoke and gravel, but his expression is suddenly alert. He raises one eyebrow a little, and there’s a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as if he knows exactly what he’s doing to Jack. As if he can see the way he makes Jack’s brain roar with bright white heat like a muzzle flare in the dark. When he looks at him, his eyes are bright and keen, like this is all a joke and he’s about to let Jack hear the punchline. “Gonna show me how much you missed me?”

 

And honestly, Jack has missed him so much that it feels like smoke filling his lungs.

 

He grabs Gabriel like he’s the last goddamn thing on earth and kisses him. Furiously this time, all teeth and tongue and hunger. Shoves his thigh between Gabriel’s legs and whines at the hot, firm weight of Gabriel’s cock against his stomach. He feels rather than hears the way the other man groans into his mouth, and it reverberates all the way to his chest, fills his body full of static. Desperately, he sinks his fingers into the muscle of Gabriel’s ass. Imagines leaving tender bruises, marks that will still be there in the morning. Marks that say _I was here, we’re alive, you’re home_.

 

There is shower water running into his eyes. Jack doesn’t care. Not tonight. All he wants to do is breathe Gabriel in, shoot him up into his bloodstream until their edges are blurred like ink in water. He pulls Gabriel as close as he can, kisses up the skin of his exposed throat, up to the place where his pulse throbs under his tongue, the place that always makes Gabriel pliant and easy in his hands. Feels the way it makes him twitch and shudder. There’s the taste of clean laundry in his mouth.

“Let me take care of you,” he says. Because he wants to be able to in a way that _means_ something, in a way that isn’t pulling a trigger or watching his six or guiding Gabriel out of a seizure. Because this life has taught him how to ‘take care’ of Gabriel when he _needs_ to, but never when he _wants_ to.

 

Jack slides his hand down between their bodies. Past the thick scar under Gabriel’s ribs, the smooth plane of his stomach, the dark trail of hair below his navel. Slowly, he wraps his fingers around Gabriel’s cock. Strokes, just once. It’s clumsy, but it’s enough. The breath chokes in Gabriel’s throat, and it feels like benediction.

 

“Yeah,” Gabriel breathes, nods too quickly, and his hands are all over Jack. Grabbing and caressing. Like they’re looking for a way under his skin. He’s laughing again, moving in tiny, stuttering motions against Jack’s palm.

 

“Yeah?” he grins, giddy and out of breath and full of warmth.

 

“ _Yeah_ .” Gabriel replies, moans as he pushes into the grip of Jack’s hand. “ _Fuck_. Jack.”

 

Somehow, he manages to drag Gabriel out of the shower. Forgoes turning on the lights. He stumbles, almost trips over the trail of clothes on the floor, and feels himself laughing because it feels like being _young_ again. Like frantic back office kisses and impulsive handjobs in SEP issued sheets.

 

When they finally reach the bed that they haven’t been able to share in half a year, Gabriel lies back against the pillows, takes his time making himself comfortable as though he’s trying to remember how this all works. When he finally stops laughing and looks up, Jack feels his mouth go dry and the air go out of his lungs.

 

Gabriel is splayed out across their sheets. The SEP promised to make them into gods, but here, in the gauzy half-light, stripped out of the armour and away from the glare of the cameras, Gabriel is skin and scars and bone. Somehow, in Jack’s mind, that’s more precious than any promise of divinity. He’s damp and flushed from the shower, and just looking at him makes Jack’s palms itch with the need to _touch_. There’s something unfair about how gorgeous he is like this, about the way the distant bathroom light strokes across his chest, about the way he looks with his pupils blown.

 

Carefully, Jack settles himself between Gabriel’s legs and makes a home for himself there, lays kisses up the inside of his left thigh. He starts at the knee surgery scars from Detroit, traces up to the stretch marks, the barcode tattoo. He makes sure to pay tribute to all of them, kisses each one, reconnecting all of the dots that make up _Gabriel Reyes_. More than anything, he wants to worship every inch of Gabriel, to imprint his body into his muscle memory so that he’d recognise it even with his eyes closed, even if he went blind. The whole time, Gabriel stares down at him quietly with something like reverence, eyes wide and dark and it makes something in Jack’s chest buzz.

 

There is precum leaking onto Gabriel’s stomach and just looking at it makes Jack’s tongue feel too heavy in his mouth. Slowly, he licks a line up to it from the base of Gabriel’s cock, up the ladder of his piercings, tastes salt, and tries not to groan at the sound Gabriel makes. It goes right down his spine, makes his hips twitch involuntarily against the bedsheets. Slick heat is coiling right at the bottom of Jack’s belly and he’s so hard it’s almost painful. Gabriel’s body is so _warm_ and inviting and it’s all he can do not to press into it and rut against the heat of his thigh.

 

Instead, he wraps his hand around Gabriel’s cock and jerks him off in firm, lazy strokes. He twists his wrist and feels precum smear over his fingers. Gabriel’s eyes keep darting to Jack’s mouth, hungry and eager, and it only makes Jack’s own cock even harder. Every drag of his hand has Gabriel’s hips pushing up to meet him, pushing up into the tight ring of his fist. He lets the movement guide his rhythm, until the other man’s fingers are fidgeting in the bedsheets and his jaw is clenched and there is a thin sheen of sweat on his skin.

 

“You okay?” he asks, drawing abstract patterns into the skin just above Gabriel’s hipbone with his free hand. Makes a show of kissing wetly at the very top of his thigh. Doesn’t stop the movement of his hand.

 

“I’d be better if you fucked me already,” Gabriel huffs. Even in the dim light, Jack can see the tell-tale way that he chews his own lip, the crease of his eyebrows. “Come _on_ , Jack.”

 

“Whatever you say, Commander” Jack grins.

 

And then Gabriel’s cock is in his mouth and he tastes like salt and musk and rain and it’s so heart-wrenchingly _familiar_ that Jack almost sobs. There is a bright, solid, ache somewhere underneath his sternum.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gabriel exhales sharply, as though all the air has been punched out of his lungs, and Jack feels like everything and nothing all at once. Without looking up, he grabs for Gabriel’s right hand, feels the way his fingers tremble, and guides it to his own head to give him permission. Gabriel winds his fingers into Jack’s hair and rocks into his mouth in shallow, desperate thrusts. Jack’s eyes water and he almost chokes. He feels _whole_ again. He never wants it to end.

 

“I missed your mouth,” Gabriel is saying, soft and fond. His left hand is roaming down Jack’s face, gun-calloused fingers stroking along the place where Jack’s mouth is stretched wide around his cock. Jack leans into it, whines through his nose.

 

His jaw aches but the weight of Gabriel’s palm is firm and reassuring against his scalp, like an anchor, and it’s the only thing that matters. He gets lost in the heaviness of Gabriel’s cock against his tongue and the way his thighs tense every time he hits the back of Jack’s throat. Somewhere above him, Gabriel is telling him over and over how good he is, and the praise sends heat sparking up his thighs.

 

When Jack finally pulls away, it feels like loss.

 

“Pass the lube,” he says, tries to keep his voice even. “Let me welcome you home.” A soft, hungry noise wrestles its way from Gabriel’s throat and he barely blinks before he’s fumbling in the bedside drawer. Jack sits back and wipes the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand.

 

He loves fingering Gabriel. Loves watching him come undone piece by piece in his hands, loves watching the way he opens up. So he takes it slow, takes his time, fucks him out on his fingers one by one. Curls them until he finds the place that make Gabriel’s whole body shiver and his eyes go glassy. Until he’s panting and pliant and slippery with lube.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gabriel moans, scrubs a hand down his face and laughs, like he can’t believe any of this is real.

 

“Feel good?” Jack asks, fucking into the heat of Gabriel’s ass with his fingers. He twists them up until he feels Gabriel’s thighs clench and his cock twitch. “Right there?”

 

“You gonna fuck me today or not?” Gabriel is trying for the voice he uses to command, the one that affirms the 4 years of military experience he has over Jack. To his credit, he almost manages. But the words slur, come out too quickly, like he’s drunk.

 

“Not if you keep being an asshole,” he says, and he smiles because even when Gabriel is an insufferable ass he’s still the thing that feels best between Jack’s lungs, still the thing that makes all his cracks fill in. Carefully, he crooks his fingers again, strokes thick circles into the velvety heat of him, and the noise Gabriel makes shoots straight to his hindbrain.

 

Gabriel throws his arm over his face, presses the crease of his elbow over his eyes. Says: “fuck you,” but there’s no venom in it, just something old and tender.

 

“That’s kind of the point of the whole exercise, Cap.” Jack grins, listens to the way Gabriel groans, half despair half pleasure.

 

After that his mind becomes a blur. A rush of feeling and sticky hands and Gabriel’s voice. Gabriel helps him roll on the condom. He settles himself between Gabriel’s thighs. Breathes deep and feels anticipation tickling needle-sharp like ice at the bottom of his spine.

 

“You ready?” he asks, kisses wordless prayers into Gabriel’s skin, _keep him safe, keep him home, don’t take him away from me_.

 

Gabriel nods.

 

And then he’s pushing into the tight heat of Gabriel’s body and he almost forgets how to breathe.

 

He kisses him through it, hungry and tender. Feels Gabriel’s breath hitch against his mouth as he takes Jack’s cock wonderfully, gorgeously slow, an inch at a time. All at once, he’s completely inside him, and he’s so slick and hot and tight and _perfect_ that Jack’s whole body shudders as his mind bursts open like fireworks in July. Gabriel breathes in too fast, air catching at the back of his throat, and he whines, actually _whines_. The sound is sharp and sweet in Jack’s ears like battery acid. He shivers right from the base of his neck, overwhelmed.

 

“You feel amazing,” he hears himself saying, dazed. Everything is heat and home and it makes his brain stutter, like tripping over in the dark. There are too many sensations all at once and he drowns in it, in the tidal pull of someone else’s body. He blinks hard, tries to urge himself back into focus. Distantly, he’s aware that Gabriel is laughing at him, only for the sound to become a moan as Jack pulls back and presses deep into him again.

 

There is barely any rhythm. It’s sloppy and out-of-time. They’re both too exhausted for it to be perfect, but it’s everything that Jack has been yearning for for six months. He makes a cathedral of Gabriel’s body, presses into him and remembers what it’s like to have faith. Every movement of Gabriel’s hands against his back is like ablution, washing one-hundred and eighty-three days and uncountable miles from his skin.  
  
“Fuck,” Gabriel is saying, over and over, like laughter, “fuck, yeah, Jack, fuck, _fuck_.” Jack watches, beatific and hazy, as Gabriel slips his hand down between their bodies to touch himself. Something about it feels dream-like, torpid like silk in water. There’s a certain art in the way Gabriel’s fingertips skate down his own chest, the sweaty plane of his stomach, that seems like it’s conjured straight from Jack’s wet dreams.

 

But it’s real, it’s all real, and he doesn’t want to let any of it slip away. Quickly, Jack moves his own hand to Gabriel’s cock, still slick with lube.

 

“Hey, no. Let me,” he says quietly, as he starts to stroke Gabriel along to the movement of his hips. “I’m gonna take care of you, remember?”

 

“Guess you really did miss me,” Gabriel quips. He’s smiling, eyes half closed. His whole body twitches gorgeously as Jack thumbs at the head of his dick, and he exhales loudly between his teeth. It’s almost too much for Jack to bear.

 

“Yeah,” Jack is breathless and smiling, and he doesn’t even know what he’s saying, only that his heart is going to burst out of his chest if he doesn’t say it. “Been fucking dreaming about this, about you.”

 

“Maybe I should go away more often.” Gabriel raises an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitches into a grin he can’t quite seem to hold back. “Could get used to this.”

 

“Asshole,” Jack laughs, twists his wrist, and a rush of satisfaction curls in his stomach at the gaspy, contented sound that Gabriel makes. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare.”

 

“I know, I know.” Gabriel’s hands are petting clumsily at Jack’s face, threading through his hair, grabbing at the back of his neck like he can’t let him go. He smiles, all teeth. “I missed your flat ass too.” Before Jack can protest, he tugs him down and kisses him, long and deep. It sends a rush of warmth blooming in his chest like neat whiskey. His arms wrap around Jack’s back and for the first time in six months, he feels at ease.

 

Being tangled in Gabriel’s body feels like all of his pieces are being brought together again. So Jack fucks him into the mattress that’s not been _theirs_ for six months. Presses his face into Gabriel’s throat and pants and whines and lets himself remember who he is. Feels the cool metal of Gabriel’s dogtags against his chest. His ears are full of his own heartbeat and the breathy, euphoric way that Gabriel moans at the edge of every thrust, and he can barely breathe.

 

“Oh fuck,” Gabriel says suddenly, low and desperate, and there’s urgency in his voice, “oh _fuck_.”

 

“Yeah?” Jack gasps, grins, and his thighs are burning but he can't stop, not now, not when he’s so close, not when Gabriel’s body is curving and shuddering underneath his, not when Gabriel is desperately fucking Jack’s hand to the increasingly erratic rhythm of his thrusts. There is pleasure clawing deep under his skin, aching for release. “You close?”

 

There is no reply. Instead, Gabriel is grabbing at his neck and tugging him down so that their bodies are pressed tightly together, so that all he can feel is Gabriel’s sweat-damp skin against his own, until all of their edges blur. Jack presses his nose into the join of his throat and inhales. All of his senses fill up with _Gabriel_ , and he’s so close, so goddamn _close_.

 

“Don’t stop,” Gabriel is saying into his ear like it’s a mantra, sex-addled and gasping, eyes screwed shut, and Jack can feel the fingers of his right hand clenching and unclenching against his face and the nails of his left in his back. There’s something sacramental about it somehow, and it makes the blood rush in his head. His balls feel tight and it feels so fucking perfect, so fucking _good_ that he almost doesn’t want it to stop even though he knows he can’t last, feels himself stuttering on the brink. He mouths at Gabriel’s neck, sloppy and urgent. “Don’t stop, Jack. Don’t stop.”

 

“Gonna make you cum,” Jack says deliriously. He’s outside of himself and the words don’t even make sense, and he can barely breathe, and he’s fucking Gabriel so hard he almost thinks he might break. He presses his forehead against Gabriel’s own. Frantic, he grabs for Gabriel’s hand with his free one like it’s a lifeline, a rope in the dark. Tangles their fingers together until they’re intertwined against the bedsheets. He’s rambling and he can’t work out what he’s trying to say but it feels like the most important thing in the world. “Gonna make you cum all over my hand, gonna keep fucking you until you cum all over me, c’mon Gabe, make me yours, just-”

 

“I love you,” Gabriel pants, almost feverish. He’s heard the words a thousand times before, but after six months, it catches him off guard. It hits him squarely in the ribs and knocks the air right out of his lungs, leaves him winded, almost light-headed. His whole chest seizes with something that feels like summer evenings. Gabriel’s body is moving under his in the dark and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so _warm_.

 

Gabriel chokes on something that sounds like Jack’s name and his body clenches, beautifully, impossibly tight around Jack’s cock, and there’s hot cum spurting onto Jack’s hand. The way he moans through it makes sparks light up in Jack’s brain. His fingers tighten on Jack’s, like he’s holding on for dear life. It’s that that tips Jack over the edge.

 

“Oh fuck,” he hears himself saying, except the voice doesn’t feel like his own, and he can’t get enough air, and his chest is ready to burst open, “oh god, oh fuck, oh _fuck_ .” His world tilts, a glorious rush of vertigo, as he slams his hips home into Gabriel’s wet heat and feels himself come undone. Everything gives way. There is nothing in his ears but white noise and his mind is empty and all that he knows is that his heart is hammering against his ribcage and that Gabriel is _everything_.

 

Jack comes down slowly. Stitches his consciousness together by increments. Vaguely, he’s aware that his fingers are still moving sporadically on Gabriel’s cock. That Gabriel is patting weakly at his hand: _enough_. He feels heavy and feather-light all at once. Gabriel is panting under him. There’s a dazed, blissful expression on his face, like he’s seen god.

 

There are warm hands clutching at Jack’s face and suddenly Gabriel is kissing into his mouth. Jack sighs into it, lets the world swim slowly back into focus. It feels comfortable. Safe. He is vaguely aware that he’s sweaty, that he’s starting to shiver as his skin cools. But none of it is as important as the way Gabriel tastes on his tongue.

 

When Jack’s breathing finally evens out, he extracts himself from Gabriel’s arms, pulls out of the wonderful heat of him. Ignores the little whine that steals out of Gabriel’s throat. Unsteadily, he ties off the condom and throws it at the bin. Grabs a damp washcloth from the bathroom.

 

He stumbles back to the bed where Gabriel is lying exactly as he left him, still breathing hard, the dog-tags rising and falling on his chest with each gasp of air. There’s a glistening trail of lube along the inside of his thighs. Jack cleans him up with the washcloth, wipes the cooling streaks of cum off his stomach.

 

Eventually, he throws the towel to the floor and rolls back into Gabriel’s space, back into his reassuring warmth. Gabriel blinks at him almost like it’s a surprise to see him, smiles. He is always dozy and pliant when he’s cum. It’s one of the many things that makes fondness well up in Jack’s chest.

 

“Hey,” he says quietly, kisses at Gabriel’s forehead. Draws senseless, languid maps across the side of his face with his fingers. Across his eyebrow, down the scars on his cheekbone. “You with me?”

 

“Umhm.” Gabriel nods slowly. Smiles only for it to be broken by a yawn.

 

“Feeling good?”

 

“Been worse,” Gabriel shrugs, snorts as Jack bats lethargically at his face. Grabs urgently for Jack, as though the two inches of bedsheet that separate their bodies are an unfathomable ocean that he can’t bear to have between them. When he speaks, his voice is soft and fond. “C’mere.”

 

He’s sleepy and sated and nothing seems better than the thought of being wrapped in Gabriel’s arms. So Jack shuffles himself until he is pressed against Gabriel’s chest, until he can hear the strong, comforting beat of his heart. He reaches up to cup his hand around the side of Gabriel’s face, to stroke his thumb across the line of his cheekbone, just to remind himself that it’s real. Something in his chest finally eases. Lets its hackles down and curls into rest.

 

Jack drifts asleep to the sound of Gabriel’s breathing, and finally, the little Los Angeles apartment feels like home.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [You can find me on twitter as @mitten_crab!](https://twitter.com/mitten_crab/)  
>  \---
> 
> Notes: 
> 
> Fubar: Military slang, 'Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition'. I headcanon that Gabriel gave this nickname to Jack, everyone's favourite walking disaster.


End file.
